Childhood Revisited - Transformers (G1)

I feel harsh appraising this one after all this time. I can't really compare a cartoon designed to advertise toy ranges to a film but as a kid this was essential viewing so it warrants a rewatch. Though incidentally with the exception of the Optimus Prime Toy below I didn't actually have any of the toys of the key characters, I recall a micro machines version of the "Aerialbots" and I think one of the "Combaticons" but generally it was about enjoying the stories for what they were. Incidentally due to a kerfuffle with Play.com (why do they hate me) I'm going to stop just before the movie and stick with the more Earth focussed series'.

Okay so Season one started off with a three episode special detailing the basics of the plot which were a civil war between Autobots and Decepticons on a dying planet, the Autobots fleeing to another world and crashing eons ago on Earth, finding Earth based vehicles to disguise themselves as and the Decepticons trying to steal resources to fly home. In this case it introduces us to the core 6/7 on each side and builds up the story. One of the key elements of the first series is with the exception of the episodes with multiple parts it's typically cartoon. Bad guys scheme, good guys foil scheme, bad guys go back to plot revenge and repeat ad-nauseum. As the series seems to be touching the waters I don't think there's that much there which doesn't overtly reek of salesmenship such as the random decision to build robot dinosaurs. As the hapless Michael Bay says "what use is disguising yourself as a robot dinosaur". That said everyone loves Grimlock. Probable highlight is War of the dinobots which shows Grimlock as slightly more than just a dumb brute, far more like he is in the comic books. Sadly in later years he reverts to little more than a comic figure.

Season two starts off in much the same way as the first with using that same core (primarily) and a couple of the later additions like the Constructicons (without wrecking ball testicles thank you Mr Bay...) but after the first dozen or so it begins to branch. What it does is start to expand the universe, alongside the typical salesman spiel we're now introduced to concepts like the super computer Vector Sigma which gave the transformers life and personalities and going back to when the war began and basically creating a more "real" universe. A lot of the new characters were introduced because of toys but some (Alpha Trion being the most important possibly) were also there to develop a real world. I do think a large part of it was down to the fact the movie was going to be worked so it makes more sense to try and develop a better plot. Especially when they made some of the decisions regarding key elements of the movie, got to admit, little Lanky was traumatised... Of course it wasn't all relevant plot building. Vector Sigma knows what they were thinking with the episode "Kremzeek".

As a product though how does it really hold up? In some cases it does look incredibly 80's and the number of animation and sound errors is shockingly high which shows how rushed some of it would be put together. Overall though it's not that bad to watch, 'er indoors actually watched this all for the first time as I was putting this all together for the sake of the blog and she was giggling sometimes at it and enjoyed watching through generally although I doubt she got why I dragged her to the cinema for the first Bay film like a giggling fanboy.

If you didn't enjoy it as a kid I don't think going back now is really going to change anything. I'm sure Hannah enjoyed the odd episode but I don't think she'd have sat through the lot if it hadn't been for the fact we were spending our evenings with nothing on television. For a nostalgic look it can be worth it but I think it is entirely down to getting it for a cheap price that you're happy with. It doesn't hold up great but I still think it looks and sounds a lot better then cartoons I'd caught since, not sure what that says about kids telly these days...